WHAT RABBI JEHOSHA SAID. A WINTER-EVENING HYMN. If we move away, thou sittest gazing With those vague eyes at the selfsame spot, And thou mutterest, thy hands thou wringest, Seeing something, us thou seest not. Strange it is that, in this open brightness, Thou shouldst sit in such a narrow cell; ALL-SAINTS. 363 ONE feast, of holy days the crest, rest In God's still memory folded deep; The bravely dumb that did their deed, And scorned to blot it with a name, Men of the plain heroic breed, That loved Heaven's silence more than fame. Strange it is that thou shouldst be so Such lived not in the past alone, lonesome Where those are who love thee all so 'T were glorious, no doubt, to be Said all the Host of Heaven could say. But thread to-day the unheeding 364 A WINTER-EVENING HYMN TO MY FIRE. To serve in Vulcan's clangorous smithy Fed with precious woods and spices ; As the shade of Dian's crescent, III. Fathom deep men bury thee IV. Elfish I may rightly name thee; While brazen pulses, far and near, V. But when we make a friend of thee, And admit thee to the hall Then, Cinderella, who could see Now in the ample chimney-place, VI. O thou of home the guardian Lar, Therefore with thee I love to read Life in the withered words! how swift recede Time's shadows! and how glows again Through its dead mass the incandescent Thou murmurest, too, divinely stirred, The rhythms so rathe and delicate, And broke, beneath the sombre weight VII. What warm protection dost thou bend Round curtained talk of friend with friend, While the gray snow-storm, held aloof, To softest outline rounds the roof, Or the rude North with baffled strain By him with fire, by her with dreams, divine; canst Thou fill'st the pauses of the speech Of Past and Future: not for common fates Do they wide open fling, And, with a far-heard ring, Even as I sing, it turns to pain, And with vain tears my eyelids throb and swell: Enough; I come not of the race That hawk their sorrows in the marketplace. Earth stops the ears I best had loved to please; Then break, ye untuned chords, or rust in peace! As if a white-haired actor should come back Some midnight to the theatre void and black, And there rehearse his youth's great part Mid thin applauses of the ghosts, So seems it now: ye crowd upon my heart, And I bow down in silence, shadowy hosts! FANCY'S CASUISTRY. How struggles with the tempest's swells Swing back their willing valves melo- As tower to tower confusedly tells diously; News of disaster. And when the storm o'erwhelms the WHO HAD SENT ME A SEVEN-POUND shore, I watch entranced as, o'er and o'er, The light revolves amid the roar So still and saintly, TROUT. FIT for an Abbot of Theleme, For the whole Cardinals' College, or Now large and near, now more and The Pope himself to see in dream more Withdrawing faintly. This, too, despairing sailors see While through the dark the shuddering sea Gropes for the ships. And is it right, this mood of mind Before his lenten vision gleam, He lies there, the sogdologer! His precious flanks with stars besprent, His health! be Luck his fast ally! I see him trace the wayward brook To The events in line of battle go; I see leaf-shade and sun-fleck lend Their tremulous, sweet vicissitude smooth, dark pool, to crinkling bend, In death's dark arches, And through the sod hears throbbing slow The muffled marches. O Duty, am I dead to thee That drifts tow'rd Silence? And are those visioned shores I see But sirens' islands? My Dante frowns with lip-locked mien, As who would say, "'T is those, I ween, Whom lifelong armor-chafe makes lean That win the laurel"; With amorous solicitude!) I see him step with caution due, Soft as if shod with moccasins, Grave as in church, for who plies you, Sweet craft, is safe as in a pew From all our common stock o' sins. The unerring fly I see him cast, That as a rose-leaf falls as soft, A flash a whirl! he has him fast! We tyros, how that struggle last Confuses and appalls us oft. Unfluttered he calm as the sky Looks on our tragi-comedies, high-heaped canvas yearning! shoreward Lands him, with cool aplomb, at Thou first reveal'st to us thy face ease. The friend who gave our board such gust, Life's care may he o'erstep it half, And, when Death hooks him, as he must, He'll do it handsomely, I trust, And John H-write his epitaph! O, born beneath the Fishes' sign, Of constellations happiest, May he somewhere with Walton dine, May Horace send him Massic wine, And Burns Scotch drink, the nappiest ! And when they come his deeds to weigh, ODE TO HAPPINESS. SPIRIT, that rarely comest now bloom A moment on some autumn bough With me year-long, and make intense Of trustful inexperience, While soul could still transfigure sense, And thrill, as with love's first caress, At life's mere unexpectedness. Days when my blood would leap and run As full of sunshine as a breeze, Or spray tossed up by Summer seas That doubts if it be sea or sun! Days that flew swiftly like the band That played in Grecian games at strife, And passed from eager hand to hand The onward-dancing torch of life! Wing-footed! thou abid'st with him Who asks it not; but he who hath Watched o'er the waves thy waning path, Shall nevermore behold returning Turned o'er the shoulder's parting grace, A moment glimpsed, then seen no Nymph of the unreturning feet, How may I win thee back? But no, I do thee wrong to call thee so; 'T is I am changed, not thou art fleet : The man thy presence feels again, Not in the blood, but in the brain, Spirit, that lov'st the upper air Serene and passionless and rare, Such as on mountain heights we find Or such as scorns to coil and sing Of souls that with long upward beat Have won an undisturbed retreat Where, poised like winged victories, They mirror in relentless eyes The life broad-basking 'neath their Man ever with his Now at strife, Not unto them dost thou consent A life like that of land-locked seas, Of storm deep-grasping scarcely spent Who lov'st to feel upon thy brow Spray from the plunging vessel thrown Grazing the tusked lee shore, the cliff That o'er the abrupt gorge holds its breath, Where the frail hair-breadth of an if Is all that sunders life and death: These, too, are cared-for, and round these Bends her mild crook thy sister Peace; These in unvexed dependence lie, Each 'neath his strip of household sky; O'er these clouds wander, and the blue Hangs motionless the whole day through; |